Farmer-Labor Party
a political organization originating in Minnesota and growing out of earlier farmers' movements such as the Grange and the Farmers' Alliance. It is also related to the National Non-Partisan League in general tendency, principles, and membership, although not in its party plan of action. It originated in 1918 from a union of the Non-Partisan League of Minnesota and the so-called Working People's Non-Partisan League, formed shortly before. Its first attempts were to nominate Farmer-Labor candidates in the primaries of the Republican Party; but in 1922 a regular party organization was formed and named its own candidates without any previous attempt to win the Republican nominations. Dr. Henrik Shipstead, Farmer-Labor candidate for U. S. Senator, was elected to that office by a plurality of 84,000 votes over the Republican nominee, Senator Kellogg, and a Farmer-Labor candidate was also elected to the National House of Representatives. The platform of the party includes a demand for a graduated income tax to put the burden of taxation on those most able to pay, full government control of the Federal Reserve Banks, and the public ownership and management of railroads.
A national party, organized at Chicago for the presidential election of 1920, took the name Farmer-Labor, nominating Parley P. Christensen for President and naming electors in eighteen states. It was the result of a radical movement of dissatisfaction with the older parties. It had no connection with the Minnesota organization.